A Chance
by alanwolfmoon
Summary: Set after Under My Skin, ignoring Both Sides Now. Wilson finds House in pain. Cuddy shows up too. Vaguely threesome-ish.


Wilson had been to House's apartment a lot since House's father's funeral.

At first maybe a little too much, both of them trying to convince each other that nothing had changed.

Less in the last few weeks, and only once in the last week.

But that was okay.

And the only difference seemed to be that House would actually get the door.

Except this time.

This time he didn't get the door, even though Wilson yelled through it, in case he couldn't hear the knocking over his ipod, or something.

Wilson eventually let himself in.

He was glad he had.

House wasn't hurt, or anything, or high, or overdosing, or anything like that.

But he was curled on the couch, a pillow between his knees, dark circles under sunken eyes in a pale face.

Wilson closed the door, quietly.

House was asleep, one long-fingered hand curled slightly in the blanket he had balled up under his head, breathing calm and even.

Wilson bit his lip, slipping off his shoes and padding further into his friend's apartment.

He took off his tie, and left it on the coffee table so House would see who was here if he woke up, then walked into the kitchen.

House looked utterly exhausted, and by the smell coming from one of the cups near the couch, he probably hadn't gotten up to eat anything in a while.

Wilson didn't find much in his friend's kitchen, but he did find enough stuff for homemade macaroni and cheese, which wasn't exactly the most interesting thing to cook, but would definitely be appreciated by his friend.

Wilson knows that House's pain has been worse since he went off the vicodin, has seen that the pain has been wearing his friend out, but… he didn't think it was bad enough to exhaust him like this.

He hasn't seen House like this since over nine years ago, struggling through pt after the infarction.

He makes the food, and scoops two servings out into bowls, and takes them into the living room.

House is awake now, sort of, still curled as before, but now with his eyes mostly open, sitting up a little, and fingering Wilson's tie.

He doesn't' seem to notice Wilson standing in the doorway, just fidgets with the tie, running his fingers absently along the seam.

He finally raises his eyes to meet Wilson's, managing a tired grin.

Wilson flashes a smile in return, and comes in, handing House one of the bowls.

House sets the tie back on the table, and takes the bowl and spoon Wilson hands him, then sets them on the table as well.

Wilson watches, concerned, as House slowly, gingerly, and clearly painfully moves his bad leg, supporting it with both hands, as he awkwardly pivots to rest it across the coffee table between the tie and the bowl.

He then reaches for the mac 'n cheese, but isn't able to bend over his bad leg far enough to reach.

He lets out a frustrated sigh.

Wilson hands him the bowl, and House doesn't meet his eyes.

Wilson sits on the couch next to him, and they eat in awkward silence.

House finally finishes, and puts the bowl on the couch between them, "that didn't suck."

Wilson smiles, "I'm glad you liked it."

House seems to be having trouble staying awake, and his breathing is noticeably labored.

Wilson frowns a little, as House rests his head back, closing his eyes, and absently rubbing at his bad leg.

House grimaces a little, and stops rubbing, just grips lightly over the damaged area with his hand.

Wilson bites his lower lip, watching his friend with worried brown eyes.

"If you're just gonna stare at me, you can leave," grouches House, opening his eyes.

Wilson quickly averts his eyes.

Then he sighs, and looks back at his friend, "are you okay?"

House shrugs, tiredly, "I'm… not not okay."

"Can you walk okay?"

"Stupid question," House closes his eyes.

"Can you walk okay enough to get to bed and stuff?"

A small shrug.

Wilson frowns.

"House?"

No response.

Wilson gently takes his friend's wrist.

House's pulse is elevated, erratic and thready.

"Oh… House," says Wilson, quietly, "okay… you should have said something."

House opens his eyes, looking at his friend with the utmost weariness, and says, almost rasping, "and accomplished what? Worrying you? You do that fine on your own."

He closes his eyes again.

Wilson checks his friend's temperature, is scared at the hot, dry feel of his friend's forehead.

House is dehydrated, exhausted, and in enough pain he can barely move.

Wilson gets some water, and tries to get his friend to drink it, but House isn't paying attention.

Wilson gently touches his friend's hand, "House, come on. we can reverse this right now, but if it gets any worse I might have to take you to the hospital."

That gets a reaction from his friend, and House opens his eyes, grudgingly taking the glass Wilson is holding out to him.

"What happened?" asks Wilson, as his friend sips at the water, almost cautiously, "did you hit it on something?"

House looks at him, and his blue eyes flash, and the next thing Wilson knows, his dress shirt is soaking wet in the front, and House has closed his eyes and folded his arms over his chest.

Wilson looks at the older doctor, hurt, "I'm just worried, House… what's wrong? Please, I'm just trying to help."

House glares at him, spitting out each word like a curse, "nothing *happened*, Wilson. It's *been* like this."

He closes his eyes again, but not so much to shut Wilson out, but because his outburst seems to have cost him.

Wilson watches him for a while, unsure what to say.

Finally, he decides not to say anything, and gently curls his hand around House's.

House does not pull it away.

Wilson can feel that his friend is shaking, trembling with exhaustion and pain.

His eyes sting, and he tightens his grip on House's hand, "I'm sorry."

House shakes his head, breathing starting to become more erratic.

Wilson sits with his friend, as House's pain slowly climbs.

He helps, when House tries to move his bad leg off the table.

He gets more water when House's voice goes hoarse.

He tries to be there for his friend like he hasn't in over a year.

It's not enough.

House is still suffering, still exhausted, still gasping, still hurting.

Wilson watches, and he knows now, without a doubt, that he was wrong.

Just…wrong.

No gray area.

Wrong.

House finally tells him to call the hospital, get a transport arranged, but not through emergency services.

It won't come for another two hours, but House rasps that it's okay.

Wilson sits there with him, watching his friend.

Watching House's condition deteriorate, his breathing grow more and more ragged, his trembling grow more and more pronounced.

House tells him that this is worse than most of the rest of the time since he stopped taking the vicodin, that this is one of the days he would have taken way too many pills, hoping to get the pain down to bearable levels.

Wilson hates himself for never seeing this.

Even if House refused to show him, he should have seen this.

Because House is suppressing a scream, and there's no way vicodin would have helped enough for this pain.

The transport finally comes, and as they load House into the back of the ambulance, Wilson spots a bit of color in House's hand; Wilson's tie.

Wilson follows the paramedics into the back of the ambulance, and rides with his friend to the hospital, both of his hands covering one of his friend's, a trail of ugly silk hanging down off the side of the gurney.

House is barely able to keep his eyes open by the time they reach the hospital.

* * *

Cuddy sighs, as she slides the door to her employee's hospital room open.

Wilson is asleep in the chair next to the bed, his arm resting on the bed and his head on that.

Cuddy smiles a little, sadly, as she sees that his fingers are curled unconsciously around a length of striped silk—a tie that House is also holding.

House opens his eyes, sensing Cuddy standing there.

He's got an oxygen canula on, and fluids going in through an IV.

"Doing any better?"

House nods, tiredly, "they gave me an epidural."

Cuddy closes the door behind herself, coming in and carefully taking his pulse the old fashioned way, on the side opposite Wilson.

"You okay?"

He nods again, "yeah…."

His blue eyes drift down to his friend's head, his friend's hand holding on to the same bit of silk as his, "he shouldn't have had to see that."

Cuddy's eyes are so soft House thinks they might turn to liquid, as she curls her hand in his, "he needed to see that. We all did, I think."

House shrugs, tiredly.

"What did Dr. Lanford say?"

The room was silent, for a while.

"Said…" House dropped his eyes, as he spoke, "I shouldn't be walking on it."

Cuddy sighed, sadly, "did she have any recommendations for medication?"

"Yeah, wrote me some scripts…" House pulled his hand out of Cuddy's grip, but only to wave it at the stack of paper sheets, "Wilson was gonna fill them as soon as I was stable, but he fell asleep."

Cuddy nodded, "you want me to fill them for you?"

House shrugged, "shouldn't take anything until after the epidural wears off, anyway."

Cuddy nodded again, looking at what the scripts were for.

An antidepressant, an anticonvulsant, and a strong NSAID.

She put the prescriptions back down on the table, and met House's eyes, "I'm sorry."

He shook his head, "not your fault. Not anyone's fault. I didn't stop thanks to nagging from you two, remember? Frankly, you thinking that had anything to do with why I stopped is an insult to my stubbornness." The last part was said with a tone that told her it was meant to be taken humorously.

She smiled, laughing quietly, "okay then… no guilt sex for you."

"Nooo!"

She laughed.

Wilson stirred, lifting his head off his arm and rubbing at his eyes with the hand that wasn't holding the tie, "what happened?"

"Cuddy won't give me guilt sex 'cause I told her it wasn't her fault! That's so not fair! I'm never being nice again."

Wilson laughed, "uh-huh."

House was clearly feeling a lot better.

They sat and talked and laughed, for a long time.

Cuddy noticed, though, that neither House nor Wilson let go of the tie.

Her pager went off, and she had to go deal with some emergency.

But she gave House a quick kiss on the forehead, before she left.

"You two boys play nice."

House smirked at her, as she left.

Then looked at Wilson, still grinning a bit, "she kissed me."

Wilson chuckled. House sounded so proud of that fact, he couldn't help it.

"Yes, she did."

They looked at each other for a while.

Wilson finally looked away.

But he didn't let go of the tie.

House reached up, and pulled his friend down by the collar, making Wilson meet his eyes again.

Wilson seemed surprised. Hopeful.

"Vicodin can dull emotions as well as pain," said House, quietly.

Wilson blinked down at him.

Then closed his eyes.

Then grunted, and pulled away, "urgh! You taste like morning breath."

House laughed.

Wilson blinked.

Then smiled.

It had been a long time since he had seen House laugh like that.

"Better than when I kissed him," said Cuddy, coming in, "then he tasted like puke."

Wilson looked at Cuddy, and suddenly felt nervous and turned red.

Cuddy smiled, walking over to stand next to Wilson, sliding her hand in and curling her fingers around the tie, on the other side of house's hand.

House and Wilson blinked at her hand for a moment.

Then looked at each other, and at her.

Then they both smiled, their smirks matching Cuddy's grin.

They'd get through this together.

House looked between cuddy and Wilson, as they talked.

He was still tired, and he'd dropped out of the conversation a while ago.

It had been three years since he had felt things this clearly, since the ketamine, and seven years before that, since before the infarction.

He wasn't sure if it would work out, but… without the numbness of the drugs, he felt this intense need for change.

And, for the first time in fifteen years, that need was stronger than his fear.

That was all it really took.

All he needed was to take a chance. Or in this case, two.


End file.
